Linda Barlow

by Fires of Destiny

  They crept round an outcrop of stone and came to the uppermost ledge, the same one from which Lady Catherine had fallen. Or jumped. Roger stopped and took her by the arm, helping her over the debris of a recent rockslide. Behind them the cliff rose another fifty feet or so, but it was sheer rock, and one couldn’t climb much higher without a rope.

  He held the torch high. The ledge was empty.

  “No Alan. Are you satisfied?”

  Still gripping her arm, Roger stepped to the edge. His expression changed as he stared out into the fog. “No Alan,” he repeated, his voice strange. He seemed in a trance.

  Alexandra looked down, trying vainly to see the bottom. But it was dark, and mist was swirling at their feet. It was a ghostly sort of mist, cold and damp, with tendrils that seemed to seize her around the legs and make her weak. She was tired, she realized. She had been sick for days. There was a heavy ache in her head, and she started to cough. Roger thumped her between the shoulders. The feel of his hand on her back with the drop at her feet unnerved her. His palm pressed against her spine, moving with her ribcage as the breath heaved in and out of her lungs. If he pushed her, she would fall as his mother had fallen.

  The dark mist rose higher, like cold evil fingers, sliding into her brain, into her heart. Like a perfect idiot, she thought, I’ve come up here with a murderer. He’s brought me here to kill me.

  She jerked away, backing up until she felt the security of the cliff wall behind her. A cloud opened above them and the rain poured down, but the overhanging rocks provided a bit of shelter. She shivered, watching him warily, feeling trapped.

  He grimaced and little lines cut into the furrow between his eyes. “What’s ailing you? You look as if you expect me to throw you over.”

  “I can’t bear being so near the edge. There’s something evil about this place. Something malevolent.” Her nerves tingled as it occurred to her that with his shadowed face, the black of his lashes, and the thin line of his mouth, he looked as if he fully participated in whatever malevolence there was.

  “Relax. Flinging you into the abyss would be a rather extreme punishment for your sins.”

  Her thoughts became even more muddled. “What?”

  He moved away from the edge and in against the cliff until he was almost, but not quite, touching her. He leaned his smoking torch against the rock wall behind them. “You sent Alan out after me this morning, didn’t you?”

  “No.” Had Alan told him that? “What do you mean?”

  He had a funny half-smile, but his eyes were cold. He reached out and lifted her chin in his fingers. “My little brother doesn’t always have the wit to make sense of what he sees and hears. But you do. I can almost see the wheels spinning in that clever brain of yours. How much do you know, Alexandra?”

  Sweet God! Let me be wrong, please let me be wrong about him. Please don’t let this become some ghastly moment of revelation. “About what?” she blurted, trying to sound innocent.

  “About my own sins. You’ve been nosing about, haven’t you? I’m not sure how much you actually know versus how much you’ve guessed, but either way, it’s too much.”

  “I’ve no notion what you’re talking about. And I don’t like heights. I’m getting off this ledge.”

  His arm came around her, preventing her. She had to look up at his hard-boned face; she could feel the tenseness in his muscles and smell the faint male aromas of musk and leather. Her head spun. “I thought I’d made it clear that you weren’t to meddle in my affairs. What do I have to do to stop you?”

  “I’ve sworn off meddling,” she insisted. “You convinced me quite thoroughly when you assaulted me out on the moor.”

  The wind beat against them as they confronted each other. When he didn’t speak, she added, “Is this why you dragged me up here? To point me to the edge of the cliff and threaten me?”

  He shook his head. “Not you. Some other woman, perhaps. I’m beginning to learn that threatening you is useless. No, with you it’s going to take action, not threats. Unfortunately.”

  Alexandra’s stomach was painfully knotting and unknotting itself. Is this the end? she wondered. If he kills me, it will damn well serve me right. I knew, and yet I came with him. How could I have been so foolish?

  “You’re drenched, aren’t you?” The arm around her tightened, drawing her close against his warm, hard body. She could feel the tension in his arms, his chest, his thighs. And the strength. There was no way to fight him. He could break her in pieces if he chose. “You’re still sniffling from your cold, poor lass. I shouldn’t have brought you out in this weather.”

  Then, to her astonishment, he bent his dark head and brushed her lips with his. Once, twice, three times. Light kisses, all of them. Despite her anxiety, a spark leapt in her. Her mouth tingled and her body ran with excitement as she remembered what he had made her feel a few days ago in his arms. His tongue flicked out and rubbed along her bottom lip. She quivered all over. Sweet Jesus, she didn’t know from one minute to the next whether she was about to be strangled or caressed!

  He released her after one more brief kiss and swung himself up onto a massive stone at the far end of the ledge. “We’ll sort out this out later. I think there’s a break in the clouds and the fog. I’m going to climb around the other side and see if I can make out anything in the way of a light. Maybe my idiot little brother has had the wit to kindle a fire.”

  “Be careful,” she warned, then shook her head, dumbfounded at her own zigzagging emotions.

  “There’s a cave back there, if my memory serves me well. Here, take this.” He offered her the torch. “Get out of the elements for a bit. I’ll be back presently.”

  She refused the torch, explaining that she had a tinderbox and some candles in her knapsack. The ledge was treacherous; surely he needed the light more than she did.

  Still trying to quell her lustful shivering, she moved farther in among the rocks, and after a bit of struggling with some scrubby vines, she discovered that, yes, there was a narrow opening behind her, well-concealed behind a boulder at the widest section of the ledge. Bending down, she peered into the low cleft in the cliff wall. He was right. It was a cave.

  She hesitated. She had a nightmarish feeling that she’d been here before, although she couldn’t remember ever visiting a cave at the top of Thorncroft Overhang. Her head felt heavy as threads of apprehension wound themselves around her. She wasn’t fond of caves.

  Taking a step into blackness, she pulled a tinderbox from her knapsack and made a light. In the brief flare she saw that the cave opened up as it extended into the cliff. It appeared to be both high and deep. The rock floor was dry. She scurried inside, glad to get out the drizzle. And away from the edge of the cliff. “I’ve found the cave,” she called to him. “I’ll await you within.”

  Lighting one of the candles she’d brought in her pack, she advanced into the musty-smelling air. To her surprise she saw before her the remnants of a fire, some wooden eating bowls, and some rags on a straw pallet that apparently served as a bed. Somebody lived here. Her nerves ran with an increase of the uneasiness she had felt outside. The black mist seemed to have followed her into the cave, closing around her like a glove. Somewhere water dripped.

  Alexandra endeavored to dismiss her apprehension: what’s the matter with you? Like young Jacky, do you imagine the cliff is haunted? Take heart, Alix. It’s just a cave, and an inhabited one at that.

  “Hello?” she called out. Who would live in a cave at the top of Thorncroft Overhang? A homeless peasant? An outlaw hiding from justice? “Is anybody here?”

  Her voice echoed eerily, but there was no reply. She lifted her candle and looked about. Nothing. No one.

  Taking off her cloak, she shook it out. It was soaking; she was soaking. A puddle was forming on the floor at her feet. If only she could get rid of these wet clothes and warm herself before a good fire. She hugged herself, still shivering, yet feeling oddly hot at the same time. Was she feverish again?

/>   Why had Roger kissed her like that? Such a proprietary embrace. He had asked no leave, made no apology. He touched her, held her, kissed her as if he had a right to do so. He seemed to think he had a right to do anything to her that he wished.

  Why had he suggested taking shelter in the cave? How did he even know about the cave? She didn’t, and she knew the forest well. Had he been here recently? Was he planning to come in and make love to her? Her belly grew tight at the thought. What should she do if he did?

  She rubbed the back of her hand across her forehead. Her head was pounding in rhythm with her heart. I’m a madwoman. I should be thinking of a way to defend myself against him, not wondering how it would be to lie in his arms. But her brain and her body were telling her two opposing things, and she didn’t know which to believe.

  There was a low whistle as the wind beat against the cliff and a draft was sucked into the cavern. Out of the corner of her eye she thought she saw something move in the blackest end of the cave. She raised the candle high, peering into the darkness. Her breath caught. There was definitely something moving, swaying ominously back and forth.

  “A little courage now,” she said aloud. As her eyes became adjusted to the deeper darkness, she saw more clearly the outlines of a huge shape floating on the stagnant air a few feet from where she stood. It looked like an enormous sack filling with some sort of lumpy material. And yet, there was something vaguely human about it.

  Her hands were sticky with sweat, but despite a screaming in her brain that told her to go no closer, she could not shake the urge to know what this unearthly thing was. She raised her candle like a weapon before her and advanced a step or two, slowly, cautiously, squinting her eyes to get a better look.

  Oh God! She let out a little cry and dropped the light. Gasping, stumbling back from the horror that hung there, she fell to her knees, scraping her hands and legs on the rough stone. There was a boulder near her, and she put her arms around it and hung on with all her strength. Snakes around his neck, she heard a hollow voice intone.

  A body was hanging there by a twisted rope. Above the coils that had choked away its life, the face was twisted and unrecognizable, a grotesque caricature of a human face. “You’ll be sorry for this when I’m dead.” Surely Alan could not look like that, even in death. Surely he could not have meant those words. Dear heaven. Don’t let it be Alan!

  Gulping for air, she crawled toward the dim light that marked the mouth of the cave. The swollen image of the face crawled with her, following her even when she shut her eyes. Nausea gripped her. She clamped her hands over her mouth and tried to avoid being sick.

  After several minutes of shivering and coughing, Alexandra lurched to her feet. Clutching the inside wall by the cave’s entrance, she breathed in the foggy air from outside until she began to feel better. Then she turned back to look for the candle. She knew she was going to have to go back for a second look, and quickly, before Roger followed her into the cave.

  Retrieving her tinderbox and candle, she struck a new light. Forcing one leaden foot in front of the other, she inched back to the place where the dreadful thing was hanging. The rope appeared to be looped around a rocky outgrowth that jutted from the ceiling of the cavern. It’s not Alan, she kept telling herself. He’s not suicidal. He’s not despairing. He’s too afraid of death to plunge forward to meet it. Roger, yes, Roger could probably kill himself if he believed he had some reason to do so. But not Alan. The dead man could not possibly be Alan.

  And yet, hadn’t Alan told her that he sometimes thought it would be preferable to die than to go through life crippled by his fears? He was terribly fearful sometimes. After Will’s death Alan had had the shakes for at least a week. Many times she had embraced him to comfort him, only to feel him vibrating helplessly against her. “Don’t you ever feel as if you’re suspended over an abyss, barely holding on with the tips of your fingers?” he had asked her. “Don’t you ever glance at your reflection in a scummy pool and see a stranger staring back?”

  The memory of Alan’s fears magnified her own, and she nearly dropped the candle and fled. But she forced herself to go on, telling herself that if Alan were dead, she must cut him down and attend to his body. She owed him those final devotions. He was her friend, her brother, and she loved him. Tears blinded her. She couldn’t imagine a life without Alan.

  Dear God. Please make it someone—anyone—else!

  She raised the light toward the body. I’ve seen death before, she reminded herself. Courage.

  The first thing she noticed was that the corpse was clothed in a coarse woolen tunic, not in breeches and hose. Surely Alan would not be dressed so. She looked at the hands. Surely these square ringless fingers did not belong to Alan. And the hair—Alan’s was short, not so long and tangled. The face—she forced herself to look carefully upon the face. Relief flooded her. Distorted though the features were, there was nothing of Alan in them. She leaned closer. No, it wasn’t Alan.

  It was Ned.

  Alexandra turned away, sinking back to the floor of the cave. Her muscles had no strength, and she was trembling. “There’s a shadow round about him,” Merwynna had said.

  Once again she noticed the musty smell of the cave. The smell of death? No, it couldn’t be. Ned had been alive this morning. At the most, he had only been dead for a few hours. Her stomach churned. Jesu! Poor Ned. She had sent Alan out after him this morning, but obviously he had been unable to protect the lad, and now Alan was missing too. Was Alan also dead? No, surely not. There was no other body in the cave.

  For what seemed forever, Alexandra huddled there on the cold stone while various ideas and fancies tumbled around in her head. Slowly her mind cleared. As her thoughts grew less thick and sluggish, she knew herself again for a heedless and credulous fool. Her own words had condemned Ned.

  She looked back again at the dead man hanging with his feet swaying in the draft, appearing for all the world like a suicide. But he had not hanged himself, of that she felt sure. Someone else had looped the rope around his neck and twisted it until he died. Someone who feared him for the knowledge he possessed about the night of Will Trevor’s death. Someone who had followed him into Westmor Forest this morning, strangled him, and then come back for her. Someone whose lips were sweet and whose body was the only one she ever wanted to take unto her own. Her worst imaginings must be true.

  And Alan? What if Alan wasn’t missing at all? Roger had told her he had sent men from Whitcombe into the forest to search, but the only ones she had actually seen had been her own people from Westmor. It could have been a ruse to get her alone, to lead her into the forest on this dark and gloomy day, to trick her up to Thorncroft Overhang, where nobody ever went, to arrange an accident for her as he must have arranged one for Will. “Don’t underestimate Alexandra,” he had said to Francis Lacklin that night in the great hall at Whitcombe. He didn’t. He knew she was a danger to him. I’m not sure how much you actually know versus how much you’ve guessed, but either way, it’s too much.

  Unfortunately, nobody had reminded her not to underestimate him. He had outwitted her on every point. He had lured her out despite her illness, separated her from the rest of her party, cozened her into trusting him, and effortlessly unloaded Jacky, her groom. He had even calmed her fears out there on the ledge, confusing her with a kiss. Why hadn’t he pushed her then and been done with it?

  He had enjoyed the embrace. He was a self-indulgent man. He had probably decided to seduce her first, and then murder her.

  “God help me,” she whispered, burying her face in her hands. Her old friend Roger was planning to kill her.

  Chapter 9

  “Alexandra? Where the devil have you disappeared to?”

  Courage. Take heart, Alix, take heart. What did Merwynna say was the way to still one’s terrors? You must empty the mind. You must ignore the inner turmoil that seeks to drive you deeper into panic. You must stop all thinking, all imagining, and let your spirit float.

  Sitt
ing there on the cold floor of the cave listening to his approach, she tried to relax her muscles and float. She repeated the charm against fear that Merwynna had taught her long ago:

  Avaunt thou, Fear, Thou Menacer,

  Thou Shadow, thou Mirage

  I see thee not, I feel thee not,

  I rise up firm and proud.

  Avaunt thou, Fear…

  “Alexandra?” he shouted again from the mouth of the cave. His voice echoed in waves around the cavern, destroying her attempt to quiet her mind. He was no longer calling her Alix.

  How can I escape? Damn this cave—why is there no place in here to hide?

  He cursed. There was a scrape of metal, then a heavy thud. “Sweet Jesus, there are snakes in here,” he muttered. He penetrated more deeply into the cavern, and he must have seen her, since he added, “Are you insane, sitting on the snake-infected ground?”

  Roger hated snakes. The only way to frighten him as a boy had been to threaten him with one. Once, in petty revenge for some now-forgotten prank, she had put a small garden snake in his bed. He had shrieked blue murder, and at least a fortnight had passed before he’d even considered forgiving her.

  Were there really snakes here? Snakes around his neck.

  He moved toward her, smiling in an eerie manner that further unnerved her. He had sent her into the cave, knowing she must find Ned’s body. When had he turned so cruel? By the feeble light of her candle, she could see that he was holding something. There was a glint of metal as the flame danced in the draft. He had unsheathed his Turkish scimitar.

  Alexandra rose numbly to her feet, staring with perverse fascination at the curved metal blade. Would it hurt? They said it didn’t. They said you could be stabbed through and never feel anything but an odd weakness that grew stronger as you died.